Replacements
Soon, we received replacements for SSGT Hayes, Barney and LT. Dale. Assigned to Third Platoon were, SFC Phamatter, PFC Keith Hibbard and 1LT. Keith Kudla from New Jersey. My whole attitude had changed. I was different. I made a vow that I would never get close to another member of my platoon the rest of the time I was in Vietnam. I could not take the loss of someone who was that close to me. I soon sat down and composed a letter to Mrs. Smith, Barney Mother. I wanted to tell her that her son was a man she could have been really proud of. He served his country honorably and gave his life for his country. It took a while to write the letter, but I felt better after I mailed it. I helped pack the last things from Barney’s locker, but I kept the picture of him with his wife, brothers and sister.
So long Barney, until we meet again...
My mother was right,
Vietnam had made a man out of me!
SGT Gaston Paul Jones
Sgt. Gaston Paul Jones told us that he would be leaving 3rd platoon. He told us that he had re-enlisted and that he was going to be going home on a leave for 30 days and that when he came back he was going to be assigned to a Military Police Unit near Saigon so this was the last day we would see him. I was sad to see him leave since he was a good man and a good soldier, but I was happy that he was getting out of the field. He would be missed by all of us.
SGT Richard Kirby
SGT Richard L. Kirby was assigned to 3rd Platoon, taking the place of SGT Jones. He fit right in. Bryan “Mac” McClellan was assigned to him as his radio man and Eldon Preuss was in Kirby’s 3rd squad. Kirby would be in good hands with Mac and Eldon.
LT Keith Kudla
Soon I was approached by Lt. Kudla and was asked if I wanted to be his radio man. I was reluctant at first and said that I would have to think about it. Lt. Kudla then said, “Nothing to think about, you are now my new radio man.” Okay, I thought, it couldn’t be any worse than what I am already doing.
Backing up the Marines
We were back in Bien Hoa and relaxing in the rear when we were told that we had to get ready to go out on a mission. Normally we did not do anything at Bien Hoa except relax and guard the barge. This was something new and I was wondering if this had to do with our new Lieutenant. We put on all of our gear and was told by SGT Harris is report to the helipad at the bottom of the hill. This was going to be something new for me. I would be riding in the center helicopter sitting in the middle, along side the Lieutenant and Leroy Gavigan the 60 machine gunner. It wasn’t long before our 3 helicopters were airborne. We sat on the floor with our feet hanging over the edge. Once in the sky, Lt. Kudla turned to me and told me to write down the coordinates. He gave me the coordinates to where we were going, just in case if he was killed, I would know where we were. My job was to radio the other two radio men and have them write down the co ordinance too. If the Lt and I were killed, the other RTO men and their Sergeants would know where we were. I called the other two RTO men, Junior and Mac, and gave them the coordinates.
Our helicopters were flying east and the next thing I knew we were flying over the Mekong Delta, real close to the water. As the river would bend, so would the helicopters. First, up on one side and then up on the other side. We had been flying for about twenty minutes when the helicopters flew away from the water and began to get on line to set us down. As the helicopters landed, the co-pilot gave the thumb sign for us to get off. We jumped off the helicopter and ran to a safe zone and fell on the ground. The helicopters soon took off just as fast as they landed. The lieutenant gave the hand sign to circle up, and we did. Kudla told us that we were going to be moving up the trail, near the water. We moved out on the trail and the pace was a little faster than normal. We walked for about 10 minutes in Elephant grass and we started to move into a line of trees. About 30 yards into the trees we were given the hand sign to stop. It felt different to me to be walking in the middle of the formation, especially behind the lieutenant. All of a sudden the men in the front started to run. Everybody moved forward. Then I was running. I was running from the tree line to what appeared to be a B-52 bomb crater with US Marines in the crater.
Once we were all in the crater, I could see across the bend in the river. There were a lot of trees on the other side. I then noticed that we were in a crater with 16 US Marines. They were dressed in full uniform with steel pots and flack jackets. We were a recon unit and we were dressed in camouflage and bonnie hats. Lieutenant Kudla soon told me to follow him. We crawled in the crater to the center of the Marines. Kudla introduced himself and asked what was going on. A Marine, who appeared to be a Lieutenant started to explain to Kudla that they were pinned down by at least 2 snipers on the other side of the river, somewhere in the trees. Kudla asked the Lieutenant for their approximate location. I started to think, first the enemy has 16 US soldiers pinned down and now they have 18 more for a total of 34 pinned down. This is kind of crazy.
Lieutenant Kudla and I crawled back to our location in the crater, which was on the back side. I thought to myself that if the snipers started to shoot now, I would be a perfect target. Kudla grabbed the hand set to my radio and told me to turn around so he could change the channel on the radio. I could hear him make contact with what I thought was pilots. He asked the pilots if they could help us out by making a bombing run on the other side of the river. I could hear Kudla give the pilots the co ordinates of the location the Marine Lieutenant gave him. The pilot said “no problem, keep your heads down, we are on our way”. Kudla yelled to the Marine Lieutenant, pilots on their way. Soon, I could hear the sound of jets making their way down from the sky and soon I could see two jets close to the ground and they pulled up, going straight up, back out of sight in the sky. Next thing I heard was the sound of two bombs hitting the trees a crossed the river. Boom, boom was the sound they made. I could see the Marines grab their steel pots helmets with their hands and put their face in the dirt in the crater. I put my hands on my boonie hat and bent over. I could hear the sound of what sounded like rain hitting all around us. When the sound of rain stopped, everyone looked up and all eyes were on the trees a crossed the river. I could hear the pilot calling Kudla. “Bluetiger 30 how did that look?” Kudla said “that was great, but I think we need one more pass by if you don’t mind”. The pilot said, "no problem, keep your heads down, here we come again!"
Within a minute or two, you could hear the sound of the jets screaming towards the ground. I could not see them at first, but all of a sudden I caught a quick look at two fighter jets as they start to pull up and disappear again into the sky. Boom, boom the sound went. This time I decided to keep my head up to see the destruction the bombs were making on the other side of the river. As I was watching the earth being kicked up into the air and trees falling about, I felt something hit me in the chest. I wore two bandoleers of M-16 ammo around my chest. I felt like a donkey had kicked me in the chest. All of my air was knocked out of my lungs. I then looked down and I could see blood coming from my arm. As I took notice, I could see that the top magazine of ammo were dented in, to the point of it being useless and the magazine under it was bent too. As I looked to my left, on the ground, I could see a piece of shrapnel, about as round as a silver dollar. As the air was coming back into my lungs, and I was starting to breathe once again, I leaned over to pick up the piece of shrapnel that hit me, to take as a souvenir of the war. As soon as I touched it with my fingers, I was immediately burnt on the thumb and index finger. I yelled “medic, I need a medic”. Now my fingers were burnt and I still had blood coming from my arm where the shrapnel had cut me, "I need the medic!" Our medic soon came to my aid. I said, “Are you going to Medevac me out?” He said “hell no, if I have to be here then so do you”. He put a bandage on my arm and said for me to take two aspirin and call him in the morning. What a smart ass! I was just lucky as to where the shrapnel had hit me that day, or it could have been a lot worse.
Soon, LT Kudla used the radio to call back to TOC and requested the choppers to come out and pick us up. He told the Marine Lieutenant that we would be leaving and he thanked us for coming out and helping them. We left for the LZ and were on our way back to the rear. We got back and took off our gear and started to settle in for lunch. After lunch we were going to play some cards. As soon as we came back from the mess hall SGT Harris came to our tent and told Mike Leopold that he had to go to TOC because he had an incoming telephone call. As soon as Mike was finished with his conversation at TOC he returned to our tent. You could automatically tell that Mike did not receive good news. “What’s up”, Wicker asked? “My father passed away last night of a massive heart attack and my family are making arrangements for me to go home for the funeral”, Mike replied. I thought, Mike has not had a very good Vietnam tour, first he had to go home to marry his girlfriend and then flew back just in time to go out and see Barney and Hayes get killed and now he has to go back home for his dad’s funeral. I doubt seriously if he will come back to Vietnam after the funeral. Little did I know that was going to be the case! We never saw Mike Leopold again, but I kept in touch with him all of these years through letters, phone calls and e-mails.
Move to Di An
Shortly after we got back from helping the Marines, we were told that our Company was moving to Di An, which was north of Bien Hoa. We were told to pack up our bedding and clean out our lockers. Soon we were on the road to our new home at Di An. As soon as we arrived at our new location, we threw down our bedding and belongings and we walked over to the NCO club where they were remodeling it. They threw out their old free standing bar to get a new one. Gavigan, Wicker, Clouse and I, each grabbed a corner of the bar and began to walk our new found bar to our hooch. Our new hooch was a 25 man tent split into 3 sections. The front section housed 3 of our men, the ones that liked smoking their weed. The middle section housed our men that did not party that much and the back section housed us, those who liked to party and drink. We moved the bar into the back section with us and we placed our refrigerator behind it and filled it with beer. We soon started to unpack and put our belongings into our lockers. Two guys started moving in a table and chairs so we had something to write our letters home on. Di An was starting to become a better place to live than Bien Hoa. The showers were close by as well as the mess hall and the E.M. Club that we had to share with the 11th Armor Cav.
We had all week in the rear to fix up and get used to our new place. It was nice to either go to the mess hall or to the club for dinner. The club served pizza, hot dogs and hamburgers with fries. It was nice and you could buy beer on draft or by the bottle. We had been in the rear for about five days and I was rearranging my locker when I could hear someone talking to one of our guys. We had all kinds of guys checking out our new area and it wasn’t unusual to have people we didn’t know walking through our hooch. This time, the voice sounded familiar. Without turning around, I could hear the person ask for me. It sounded like Bob Potts. I turned around and it was him. “Bill”, he said. “Bob, how the hell are you? What are you doing here, are you assigned to Di An? How have you been?" I asked as we hugged. He said he was going crazy and seen all kinds of terrible shit, he had to get out of his platoon for a while and decided to come to see me. I asked how he knew I was in Di An, because the last time he saw me was in Bien Hoa. He said he hitched hiked down highway 1 to Bien Hoa first, and came to where we used to live. A truck was loading up the last of the office furniture when the driver said he would give him a ride to Di An. I asked if he was on leave. Bob said no, that he was AWOL. He went on to tell me that it was bad where he was at. They made him the 60mm machine gunner. He was assigned to the 25th Infantry Division. He said that he saw so much action that he just had to get away and come and see me.
We talked all night. We went to the EM club and drank beer and listen to music, just like old times. I told Bob that he couldn’t stay too long because I did not want him to get into any trouble. Bob agreed and we partied into the early hours of the morning. Bob had brought a marijuana joint with him and when the band took a break around midnight, Bob and I went outside to use the latrine. Bob asked me if I would share the joint with him. I had only smoked marijuana one other time in my life, and this was a special occasion, I said yes. The joint looked like something out of a Cheech and Chong movie. After Bob and I finished the joint outside, we headed back into the club. I don’t really remember anything of the rest of the night. I woke up to what I thought was the next morning. When I woke up, I saw my guys coming back from breakfast. I asked one of my guys, "where is Bob, eating?" "No", was the response. "He left for his Unit yesterday." "What", I said. They went on to tell me that Bob, and everyone else, tried to wake me up several times yesterday, but I just kept sleeping. Bob stayed around until early afternoon when one of our truck drivers were heading north on Highway 1, towards his Unit area, and would give him a ride. Bob left with the truck driver. I had lost a whole day of my life by sleeping. I don't know what was in that joint that we smoked, but it kicked my ass. This was the last time that I saw Bob Potts while we were in Vietnam, and the last time I smoked a joint too!